Organic Love for Mind & Body

The healing power of menstrual blood

Recently I was teaching a workshop in Amsterdam on the Menopause and one of my students mentioned a study on how menstrual blood is now being researched by scientists for its potential uses in healing. I had not heard of this research before, but found out that as long ago as 2008 scientists in Japan discovered that cells taken from menstrual blood can be cultivated in the lab and used like stem cells to repair damaged heart tissue. A recent study in Brazil in 2014, suggests that the cells derived from menstrual blood can create a feeder layer system for creating human embryonic stem cells.

Stem cells are powerful cells as they can be used to repair and grow new tissue. Using stem cells in medicine is a relatively new field and much more work needs to be done for it to have widespread practical applications. Pluripotent stem cells (ie…